Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

CHAPTER VI THE GOLD COAST—THE MOST IMPORTANT CACAO-PRODUCING COUNTRY IN THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD The dictum that there is nothing new under the sun must be set aside, or the Gold Coast cacao industry cited as an exception. There is surely no record in the history of the world of such rapid development in a native-owned industry. It was a cultivation, be it noted, with which the natives were totally unfamiliar. In 1878 there was not a single cacao tree on the Gold Coast; now there must be 100,000,000. A black-smith, by name Tette Kwesi, brought the first pods to the Gold Coast in 1879. Optimistic experimenter as he must have been, he could never have imagined when he brought those cacao pods from Fernando Po and planted a few seeds in his garden patch at Mampong, that the planting of cacao on the Gold Coast would spread almost with the rapidity of a bush fire. Yet four years later, in addition to pleasure at the result of his foresight, he may have felt prophetic tremors when he sold his harvest to other natives at £1 a pod. In 1891 the Gold Coast exported 80 Ibs. of cacao ; in 1921 the magnificent quantity of 298,356,800 Ibs. How did this great development happen without European management and without European Capital ? It is true that in the early days Sir William Griffith, the then Governor, encouraged the industry, and that he was ably helped by the missionaries of the “ Basel Mission.” It is true that the climate and soil were 74